As a Lilloise born and bred, I can tell you that people from Lille are some of the friendliest hosts in France, and they will happily laugh at themselves over a beer. But a handful of remarks still make a Lillois wince, and British visitors walk into most of them in their first hour. Here are the five to avoid, the facts that prove them wrong, and the local words that will win you a smile instead.
Who are the people from Lille, anyway?
People from Lille are called Lillois (men) and Lilloises (women). The city counts about 237,000 residents, and more than a million live across the wider metropolis that runs out to Roubaix and Tourcoing. I grew up on the Grand Boulevard between Lille and Roubaix, so yes, I count Roubaix as family, but please do not tell a Roubaisien he lives in Lille.
Lille sits in the Nord, the most northerly département of France, inside the Hauts-de-France region. Historically it belongs to French Flanders, which explains the brick gables, the belfries and the taste for beer. The rest of France lumps everyone up here together as Ch’tis, a nickname we wear with a mix of pride and mild weariness.
What Lillois are like
- Warm and quick to talk, especially in an estaminet or on a terrace.
- Fond of self-mockery about the weather, the accent and the beer.
- Far less amused when an outsider does the mocking.
The golden rule
That last point is the whole secret. A Lillois will joke about the rain all afternoon. The same joke from a visitor who has been in town for twenty minutes lands very differently, which is exactly where the five remarks below come in.
1. “So you’re basically Belgian, then?”
It is an easy mistake. The Belgian border is a short drive from the Grand’Place, Belgian number plates fill the car parks on Saturdays, and the food and beer look very similar on both sides. But Lille has been French for more than 350 years, and Lillois are attached to that.
The city passed through Flemish, Burgundian and Spanish hands before Louis XIV took it. His army besieged the city for a month in the late summer of 1667, and the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle made it officially French in 1668. Vauban then built the Citadel to keep it that way.
| Period | Who ruled Lille |
| Middle Ages | Counts of Flanders |
| Late 14th century | Dukes of Burgundy |
| 16th and 17th centuries | Habsburg Spain (the Spanish Netherlands) |
| From 1667 | Kingdom of France |
What to say instead
Ask about the Flemish side of the city instead. “Is that a Flemish building?” in front of the Vieille Bourse gets you a ten-minute history lesson and probably a recommendation for lunch.
Why it stings a little
Lillois love Belgium and cross the border for chips, chocolate and cheaper petrol. They simply do not want to be filed under it.
2. “Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis!”
Dany Boon’s comedy Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis came out in 2008 and sold more than 20 million cinema tickets in France, a record no French film has beaten since. Brilliant for tourism, less brilliant for every northerner who has heard the title shouted at them in a fake accent ever since.
Most of the film was shot in Bergues, a small walled town near Dunkirk. Lille only gets a cameo: the characters cross the Grand’Place and sit down at Morel & Fils, a café on the place du Théâtre that was once a hosiery shop (look up at the façade for the cheeky fake nipple that gives its old trade away), where the whole order is placed in patois. That scene is wildly exaggerated. Nobody orders in patois in Lille.
The ch’ti spoken in the film is a form of Picard, a regional language still heard among older people in the former mining towns and villages. Here is the part that surprises British visitors: most of us in Lille do not speak it. Nobody spoke patois in my family. I only picked up the expressions when I started working in tourism in the Nord, from colleagues who enjoyed swapping them across the office.
Today I can slip into ch’ti or put on the accent whenever I fancy a laugh, and most Lillois can do a spot-on impression too. It is a party trick, not the way we talk at the bakery.
What I have really learnt is to match whoever I am talking to. If someone speaks to me in patois or with a broad northern accent, I answer in kind, accent and all. In smarter, more formal company, I slip into their style just as easily. I have rubbed shoulders with both worlds, from the Grand Boulevard where I grew up to my schooldays at the collège de Marcq alongside the children of Lille’s great industrial families.
Accents in the north work much as they do in Britain: they change with where you grew up, and with your schooling and background. Expecting every Lillois to sound like the film is like expecting everyone in Newcastle to talk like a Geordie comedy sketch.
The accent trap
The famous “ch” sound, where ça becomes cha, is real, and we imitate it among ourselves for fun. From a visitor who arrived an hour ago, unprompted, it sounds less like a shared joke and more like a joke at our expense.
The safe version
Ask instead whether anyone in the family still speaks patois. Plenty of Lillois have a grandparent with a favourite expression, and they love sharing it.
3. “It must rain all the time up here”
British visitors love this one, which is rich coming from us. The French are even worse. Tell someone in Paris or Bordeaux that you come from Lille and they picture the far north, endless drizzle and bitter winters. Nobody pictures Brussels or London that way, yet both sit further north than Lille. Even Parisians are convinced it is cold and grey up here, which always makes me smile, because Paris is a short train ride away. I go there regularly and have never once stepped off the train wishing I could peel off my coat. It is the same weather. Yes, the local word drache means a sudden downpour, so the city clearly knows rain. But the numbers tell a gentler story than the reputation.
| 1991 to 2020 averages | Lille-Lesquin | London, Kew Gardens |
| Rainfall per year | about 740 mm | about 630 mm |
| Sunshine per year | about 1,630 hours | about 1,690 hours |
Météo-France figures put Lille only a little wetter than south-west London, with almost the same amount of sunshine. It rains on roughly one day in three, usually in short bursts. Manchester visitors are on even thinner ice.
Summers can be properly hot, too. One recent heatwave had me moving my desk down to the cellar, the only cool room left in the house.
Locals’ own weather jokes
Lillois make the rain jokes themselves, often, and usually while sitting on a terrace in a coat. Let them lead.
What to pack anyway
- A compact umbrella, because a drache rarely lasts long.
- Shoes that handle wet cobbles in the Old Town.
4. “Lille is just a little Paris”
Meant kindly, received badly. Lille is about an hour and twenty minutes from London St Pancras by Eurostar, and it has never tried to copy Paris. The architecture is the first clue: red brick, carved stone and stepped Flemish gables rather than Haussmann’s cream boulevards.
The Old Town, with its narrow streets, courtyards and painted shopfronts, looks closer to Bruges or Ghent than to the Marais. Lille also runs its own cultural calendar, starting with Lille3000, the cultural programme born from the year Lille was European Capital of Culture in 2004.
The French love to treat Lille as the end of the line. On holiday on the Île d’Oléron one summer, a Parisienne told me how terribly far north I lived. I reminded her that Lille is an hour from Paris by TGV, so really Paris is just the suburbs of Lille.
Between ourselves, we Lillois find Parisians a little arrogant: shut away in their own city, quietly certain it is the most beautiful in the world. Chat to them in Paris and they can be perfectly charming. What grates is the Parisian monopoly on everything, and that annoys most of France, not just Lille. Case in point: I love the mountains, but I will never book the week Parisians are on holiday. French winter and spring breaks are staggered by zone, so Lille and Paris rarely break up together, and I avoid the Paris week at all costs.
Comparisons that do work
- “It feels like a Flemish city with French food.” Correct, and flattering.
- “It’s like a smaller, friendlier Paris.” Still a comparison with Paris. Skip it.
Where to see the difference
Walk from the Grand’Place into Lille Old Town and the point makes itself in about five minutes.
5. “Moules-frites? Isn’t that Belgian?”
Here we enter dangerous territory. Mussels and chips are claimed loudly on both sides of the border, and neither side will give an inch. In Lille, the dish is tied to the Braderie, the giant flea market on the first weekend of September, when restaurants pile their empty mussel shells on the pavement and compare the heaps.
The truth is that Flemish cooking ignores the border. Carbonade flamande, potjevleesch, waffles and beer belong to the whole of historic Flanders, which stretched across today’s France and Belgium. Telling a Lillois that his favourite dish is Belgian is like telling a Lancastrian that hotpot comes from Yorkshire.
The diplomatic answer
Say “It’s Flemish”. Everyone at the table can live with that.
Other food lines to avoid
- “Is there anything here that isn’t covered in cheese?” There is, but the welsh is worth it.
- “I don’t really drink beer.” Allowed, but expect gentle disbelief.
What to say instead: the ch’ti words that win smiles
A few local words, used lightly, do the opposite of the five remarks above. They show you have paid attention to where you are. Start with a clear bonjour whenever you walk into a shop or a bar, then try these.
| Word | Meaning | When to use it |
| Il drache | It’s pouring down | Any time it rains, which gives you plenty of practice |
| J’te dis quoi | I’ll let you know | When someone suggests a drink later |
| Biloute | Mate, little one | With friends only: it also has a cheeky second meaning |
| Tiote biloute | Little one | What locals actually call a child |
Three expressions that still make me laugh
A word on spelling first: there isn’t one. Ch’ti is above all a spoken language, with no fixed rules for spelling or grammar, so you will see the same phrase written three different ways on three different beer mats. Here they are as they sound.
- Ferme et’ bouc, et mouc el va quer ed’dans: shut your mouth or a fly will fall in. Handy for anyone gawping at the Vieille Bourse.
- Remonte et’ marronne: pull your trousers up. A former colleague taught me this one, and I have never looked at a sagging pair of jeans the same way since.
- T’as de l’eau dans t’cave: you have got water in your cellar, said to anyone whose trousers are too short. Ankles on show, flood expected.
The phrase that baffles outsiders
J’te dis quoi trips up almost every visitor. Word for word it means “I’ll tell you what”, so people wait politely for the rest of the sentence. It never comes. A Lillois means “I’ll let you know”: I will call you later and tell you whether I am coming tonight or not. Answer an invitation with j’te dis quoi and you have not said yes, but you have not said no either.
The lullaby behind the word
The P’tit Quinquin lullaby was written in Lille patois by Alexandre Desrousseaux in the 1850s and has become the unofficial anthem of the city. Mention it and watch faces soften. The word itself lives on in the song rather than in conversation: nobody calls a child a quinquin today. You will hear tiote biloute instead.
How not to overdo it
One or two words per conversation is charming. Ten is a sketch from the film, and you know how that one ends.
People from Lille FAQ
What are people from Lille called?
Lillois for men and Lilloises for women. People from the wider region are often called Nordistes or, affectionately, Ch’tis.
Do people in Lille speak ch’ti?
Not in everyday life. Ch’ti is a form of Picard, and most Lillois only know a handful of expressions, which they use for fun. In the city you will hear standard French with a northern lilt.
Are people from Lille friendly to British visitors?
Very. The north has close ties with Britain, from the cross-Channel trade to the First World War memorials, and a simple bonjour goes a long way. Some visitors like it so much they end up moving to Lille.
Is Lille in Belgium?
No. Lille is in France, close to the Belgian border, and has been French since 1668.
People from Lille will forgive almost anything
Lillois are hard to offend for long. Confuse them with Belgians, shout a line from the film or complain about the rain, and the worst you will get is a raised eyebrow before someone orders you another beer. Avoid these five, try a bonjour and an il drache, and you will be treated like a regular by your second visit, so plan the first one around the Lille Top Ten. Next time, ask them what they would never say to a Parisian.
Delphine was born and raised in the Lille metropolitan area — close enough to hear the “Mongy” tram rattle past her childhood home. After more than 20 years promoting the Nord department to British visitors, first through press trips, trade shows and tour operator partnerships, then as a digital marketing consultant specialising in tourism, she’s spent her career building bridges between her home city and the UK.
Along the way, she’s picked up a genuine soft spot for both sides of the Channel: London’s Spitalfields market and a good bagel from Brick Lane are as close to her heart as the passageways behind Lille’s cathedral or a plate of Merveilleux from her favourite bakery. She was even honoured at the British Guild of Travel Writers’ dinner at the Savoy for her work bringing Cambrai’s Tank 1917 museum to life.
On Tour de Lille, Delphine writes as the local who never left — sharing the quiet corners of her city and the stories behind them, for visitors who want to see Lille the way a Lilloise does.
